Prometheus (2012)

This science fiction/action/horror movie about a team of scientists in 2093 traveling deep into space looking for the origins of mankind is almost totally without humor, other than a joke about Stephen Stills. The effects are spectacular but we wouldn't call it a masterpiece. Noomi Rapace (last in these pages in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) is lovely and warm as the brave lead scientist Elizabeth. Michael Fassbender (most recently in Haywire) is childlike as the curious humanoid robot David and Charlize Theron's (profiled in Young Adult) character of mission director Meredith is, as my father said about one of his aunts, so cold that the creek would freeze if she fell in it. One characteristic shared by David and Meredith is their ramrod-straight posture. Idris Elba (last in Thor) is the very human spaceship captain Janek and he's the one who makes the joke about the Stills song (sorry about the commercial on that link). One thing that made us smile, though it isn't supposed to be funny, is a scene in which Elizabeth defends herself with an axe, despite the proliferation of high tech gadgets. Guy Pearce (covered in Animal Kingdom) also has a small part as the financier who funds the mission. There's a huge amount of trivia on imdb, including that Pearce made a fake TED video to promote this movie, some of the cave paintings are taken from the very wonderful Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and that director Ridley Scott doesn't see this as a prequel to Alien (1979), though most reviewers have called it such.

I wrote about Scott, now 75, in Body of Lies, and here he reprises some of the effects from Alien, e.g. slimy heads emerging from people's midsections. He does like his slime and this is chock-full of gore. The script is co-written by Jon Spaihts (co-wrote another sci-fi feature about aliens which we didn't see) and Damon Lindelof (one of eight writers on Cowboys & Aliens, but better known as the series creator and occasional writer of Lost).

Last weekend in its sixth week of release it was #14 at the box office and holds a solid 73% critics/72% audiences on rottentomatoes. Jack and I saw this in 3D IMAX on June 21--three weeks ago--and I frankly can't remember if the 3D helped. I see it still is playing in that format here, for at least another week, so, if you like this sort of thing, do treat yourself to the full experience.